ABSTRACT
Multilateral diplomacy on the regional and international levels supplements Argentina’s bilateral relations. As the Peronists took power in May 1973 multilateral diplomacy in Latin America was in transition between older, declining institutions with more restricted membership to newer institutions with broader memberships and still undefined functions and ideological orientations. Argentina’s long-term strategy was to promote a multilateral treaty and international organization which would institutionalize its policy on the use of international rivers and provide a say in all projects constructed anywhere in the basin. Diplomatic consensuses reached in multilateral settings were used to redress the balance in bilateral relations with the United States and Latin American countries, particularly to bring pressure for reforms that Argentina was powerless to negotiate alone. Multilateral diplomacy on the intra-Latin American and in some aspects of the global level will be less profitable for all factions in the foreign policy community.
